


in which logan departs from his usual taste in literature

by whimsicaltwine



Series: an au where everyone lives in a weird and possibly magic mansion [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders-centric, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22073950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicaltwine/pseuds/whimsicaltwine
Summary: After a thunderstorm crushes Virgil's hopes of getting more than a few hours of sleep, he wanders downstairs and ends up joining the others for a stormy night tradition.You should probably read the other story in the series first, though.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton
Series: an au where everyone lives in a weird and possibly magic mansion [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588888
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	in which logan departs from his usual taste in literature

Lightning strikes outside, illuminating Virgil’s room in a flicker of blinding white light that throws everything in it into sharp, two-toned relief, the shadows dark and the lights white in an extreme contrast that makes everything look like a comic book for a second. Hardly a moment passes before thunder crashes behind it, so close and loud that it shakes the floor. Virgil can feel the sound in his chest.

It’s the kind of storm you expect from summer or spring, not winter. Climate change, Virgil figures, and then shoves away the train of thought that leads down before he can make himself depressed and, impressively, even more anxious than he already is.

It may be cold and loud outside, and the bare tree outside his window may thrash around like it’s being attacked, but the covers of his bed are thick and heavy, an even weight spread across his body. He pulls them farther up around his neck. Lightning, thunder again. The old house groans.

The next crack of thunder builds and gathers like a wave before finally releasing with a sound like a whip, one that rockets through the air, strong and inevitable like a bullet or a dark line drawn across paper with a decisive stroke of the hand, and makes him jump under the covers. His heartbeat picks up pace. He’s not scared, not really, but something primal speaks with each loud noise, a distant remnant of some long dead ancestor hiding in a cave and peering out an entrance shrouded with sheets of rain to look up in awe and fear at the terrible power that shakes the world like an unseen predator.

Kicking back the covers, Virgil swings his legs out of bed. It’s too loud to get any sleep, anyway. Pushing the door open slowly, his mind buzzing with all the ways he could accidentally wake someone up and make them mad at him, he steps out into the hallway, his feet quiet on the wooden floor, and starts making his way down the stairs.

The grand staircase is majestic and stately in the day, an elegant thing that, like a lot of things here, looks like it’s been pulled out of a painting, or a storybook. Just as Virgil reaches the bottom, he hears rapid footsteps making their way down the hallway he’d just left. He whips around.

Never losing speed, Roman vaults up onto the bannister, keeping his arms up at his sides as he slides down in a smooth, practiced movement as natural as walking or tying your shoes, and when he gets to the end he neatly hops off, getting thrown forward so that he has to take a few quick, staccato steps to come to a stop just past Virgil. He turns around. “Ah, Virgil!” he says, grinning, “I was going to get you once we’d already set everything up, but it seems that fate has decided otherwise. Come, my friend, and we’ll continue our quest for blankets!” With that, he starts off down the hallway. Virgil follows, mourning the loss of his hoodie pocket. “I left my favorite down in the library the other day, so we can collect Logan on the way back. Fool’s probably trying to read biographies in the dark,” Roman says, chuckling. Virgil’s bare feet pass over cold wood and all kinds of random rugs, each embellished with a different color and pattern; there’s an oval with a stripe of yellow that spirals out until it traces the edge, a Celtic-esque design of lines that circle around and under and back into each other, a delicate and threadbare pattern of flowers. Roman tramps across the creaky floorboards ahead of them until they reach the library, where he grabs the doorway and swings himself into the room before continuing on without missing a beat.

The library is a dense and heavy, yet homey thing. When Virgil first came here, he half-expected something like the one in Beauty and the Beast, a bright room where shafts of sunlight came through big windows to make a home under the high ceiling. It would have ladders that rolled along the shelves, ones Roman would ride across the room while Logan sent him disapproving glares. Instead, the room is cozy and dark, a neat matrix of shelves that form little corridors to venture down, each lit by round yellow lights trapped against the ceiling by wide, gently curved pieces of glass. Even without the high ceiling, the room seems to go on forever, an infinite plane tucked into a finite sliver of the house. One side of the room is open, forming a wide pathway for you to walk as you peruse the labels on the sides of the exterior shelves — or for you to curl up in one of the big chairs that are clustered there.

Roman takes a white knit blanket from one of the chairs, gathering it up in his arms. Virgil smirks. “You sure you don’t want to wear it like a cape, princey?” he says, viciously berating himself for saying something like that as he starts off towards Logan’s study, to which Roman responds by stopping for a moment, his face overtaken by a comic expression of shock, like he’d just discovered the meaning of life. Virgil tenses. Is he going to send him back to his room, where he’s alone in the spell of darkness and unreality cast by the storm?

“That’s brilliant, Virgil!” Roman says. The words have a sort of energized momentum to them, like Roman is giving each one a big push to get it going, and without a moment’s hesitation he fumbles through the folds of the blanket to find an edge, swings it up around his shoulders, and neatly ties two corners together in front of his chest. It’s a big, thick blanket. As Roman starts off towards Logan’s study, it gathers in slow, heavy folds, draping down his back in layers and layers of white and trailing on the ground behind him, each step dragging it forward just a bit more.

Logan and Roman both have rooms near the library, since they’re both there so often. It’s the most likely spot to catch them bickering, their rising voices winding their way out of the shelves and over to Virgil, who’s taken to hunting around for books to read now that he has to practically climb onto the roof for any kind of internet connection. Wincing, Virgil follows Roman when he sweeps into Logan’s study with a flourish of his blanket cape.

“Greetings!” he announces, prompting Logan to skeptically look up from his book, one eyebrow raised in a critical appraisal of Roman. His eyes sweep from his messy, sleep-mussed hair to his blanket cape to his bright red pajamas.

“Yes?” Logan offers. He’s sitting at his desk in the corner of the room, his back to the wall as he straightens himself up from where he’s leaning over his book, his arms resting neatly on the edge of the desk. The heavy curtains over the two little windows are open. Rain falls in heavy gray sheets on the other side.

“Logan,” Roman greets, nodding. Above them, on top of the shelves that line the walls of the room, Logan’s cat sidles across to them in that dignified cat sort of way, a stripe of light sliding across his sleek black fur as he makes his way across and, after a moment’s calculation, stretches out like a slinky and leaps down to land softly at their feet, where he winds around Roman’s legs, pausing to sniff the blanket. “Patton and I are setting up in the drawing room,” he says, leaning against a bookshelf in a way that makes Logan scowl.

Virgil expects Logan to scoff, tell them to get out of his study with a voice that drips with annoyance and make Roman mad so that everyone will be at each others’ throats and Patton will desperately try to resolve it and Virgil will have to sit in the middle getting more and more stressed, but instead, some part of Logan seems to soften just a little, like butter left out on a counter to melt; his shoulders fall from their customary rigid posture and something in his eyes shifts. “Very well,” he says, neatly closing his book and setting it to the side as he stands up, “I will join you.” He moves slowly, and Pythagoras the cat mews at him as he passes. 

Just like that, they’re once again processing through the hallway, Logan eyeing Roman’s blanket cape with a hint of disdain as he walks behind it, his steps stuttering in order to avoid stepping on it. Thunder shakes the house once again. In the solitude of Virgil’s room, the thunder and lightning are otherworldly, shifting the universe over into a space where nature’s power is showcased in grand, dramatic displays of pounding rain and booming thunder and flashing lights that warp everyday settings into dark, charged, and fresh versions of themselves that, together, seep into Virgil’s skin, lapping at him like ocean waves washing over the shore. Here, though, with Logan and Roman around him, the world is cleaved into two neat halves: the outside, where rain batters at the house, and the inside, where the three of them step through a doorway to find Patton setting a pair of mugs down on the coffee table with a sound like the rain on the rooftops.

The room — parlor, sitting room, drawing room, Virgil can’t bring himself to understand the difference — is draped in soft yellow light from a couple of lamps scattered around scuffed side tables and elegant shelves, the warm brightness a gentle drapery that crests over the back of the couch and the top of the coffee table and then falls down to pool on the oriental rug that covers the floor. Looking up from where he’s begun to arrange a collection of blankets, Patton smiles, soft and bright like clouds on a clear summer day. 

No sooner have they stepped into the room then Roman flounces over to the couch, dramatically collapsing onto it as he pulls his makeshift cloak over his body with a wide, sweeping movement that sends a spike through Virgil’s heart, because there is a kerosine lamp _right there_ on the coffee table, and if Roman’s not careful all four of them will go up in flames. Logan catches it, too, if his weary sigh is anything to go by. Nevertheless, he steps forward as well, picking his way though all the blankets scattered over the floor to join them.

Virgil tugs at the hem of his shirt. The three of them fit there so well together, seamlessly taking their places among the stately chairs, worn coffee table, scattered lamps, and the old couch. As they pick up their mugs and pass around blankets, they make a scene that wouldn’t be out of place hanging in an art museum, each color and character and movement fitting neatly together like the pieces of a machine. Virgil, with his old, faded band t-shirt and his purple hair, just doesn’t fit. Machines don’t need any extra parts, he thinks, a cynical, twisted little smirk sneaking its way onto his face just in time to cover up the dejected, defeated look that lingers in his eyes. And here he is, an extra piece. 

Mourning the fact that he doesn’t have a hoodie pocket to shove his hands in, Virgil ducks his head, his hair falling across his eyes and casting a sheer half-shadow over his face. Patton turns from where he’s smiling at Roman. Stepping away and turning with the practiced grace of someone accustomed to taking care of others, he scoops a black mug up off the table, his hands curling around it like vines wrapping around a garden post. “Come on, Virgil,” he beckons, “this one’s for you.”

Oh.

When Virgil steps forward to take his mug, he does it like a scared animal creeping towards someone offering it food, with his ears tucked back and every hair bristling as he tenses his muscles, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, but the betrayal never comes — no, he’d been foolish to even think of it. Patton presses the mug into his hands, and with a dumb smile spreading its way across his face, Virgil steps over the threshold of the scene and takes his own place just as Logan crouches down to examine a shelf built into the bottom of the coffee table. Leaning to the side, Virgil catches a glimpse of a neat array of books.

Virgil has seen Logan work once or twice, awkwardly standing in his study doorway while gathering the courage to break the silence and ask a question or make a request. In his study, Logan plucks books from the shelves with blind precision, his long, delicate fingers hooking just past the top of the spine, tilting it, and then smoothly pulling the volume off the shelf with movements just a degree or two from snappy and abrupt. It’s similar in the library, though he may spend some time searching a shelf before he makes his selection. This isn’t like that. Now, Logan trails his fingers along the spines of the books, tracing each little curve, reading each title, and allotting each one a sufficient amount of time to be greeted properly.

Virgil’s eyes follow behind Logan’s hands, reading the titles as he goes. There’s _Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, Little Women,_ and _The Wizard of Oz_ , each with stately little spines and neat lettering announcing the title. He makes a mental note to get them Harry Potter.

Sighing, Patton comes up behind Logan, leaving Roman to sprawl out over his place on the couch as Patton not-so-subtly elbows Logan, making him lose his balance for a moment; one hand darts back like a frightened snake to keep him from falling. “Virgil,” Logan says, under Patton’s prompting gaze, “what would you like to read?” Besides Virgil, Roman snickers.

“Anything’s fine,” Virgil says, shrugging. This isn’t his tradition, after all. But Patton’s not having it. Putting his hands on his hips, he tilts his head, leans forward just slightly, and slips into a pose that somehow exudes pure admonishment. “Virgil,” he says, his voice lilting like a tree branch bobbing in the wind, “we want to read what _you_ want.” Roman makes a face at that, one that sets off a cascade of _oh my god I have to choose right so he likes it otherwise he’s going to hate me,_ but after a moment — and a look from Patton — he seems to relax, pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders.

Maybe it’ll be okay.

Anxiety still buzzing in his chest, Virgil shifts in his seat, shuffling his arms and legs around, before finally managing to mumble, “I like A Series of Unfortunate Events.” With that, Logan takes the book of the shelf. 

As Patton settles in on Virgil’s other side and Roman tucks his feet into the end of his blanket, making him look like some sort of knitted larva, Logan strides across to an armchair across from the rest of them, the lamp tracing lines of warm color along the edge of each cable-knit ridge on his gray turtleneck sweater. Sitting down, he begins to read.

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you are better off reading some other book.” Logan’s voice is steady and even, the measured click of a metronome guiding the other three through the story, laying out each sentence there on the table in front of them. As Virgil listens, he gets lost in the ebb and flow of the matte syllables, the tide washing over him with a gentle, sweeping caress. Roman rests his head on his shoulder. 

Virgil has always liked storms, liked them for their striking power, liked them for the cool, inviting darkness they set as the world’s backdrop, but now, as he wiggles down to sink into the blankets, with Patton and Roman steady presences pressed up on either side of him, the beginnings of another reason start to gather in his mind, pieces of the puzzle colliding and sticking to each other like snow. Here, in the soft light, it is cozy and warm, a stark contrast to the upheaval that lives outside. The contrast makes it even cozier. He’s safe and warm, here.

As Patton yawns and Roman blinks long and slow, Virgil pulls his knees up onto the couch and lets the cadence of Logan’s words carry him to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever find yourself writing, when all the sudden every single english teacher you have ever had screams, " book titles should be italicized," from the depths of your mind? No?
> 
> Anyway, please comment to tell me what I did well and what I can improve on!


End file.
